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Tip

Make ahead

The joy of this dish is that it can be made ready to bake several hours ahead or frozen, so it’s perfect if you are having friends round or want to get the cooking out of the way early.

Method

Slit the sausages and remove them from their skins, then chop them into small pieces. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion and fry for 5 minutes, until softened and lightly browned. Stir in the sausages and fry until lightly coloured. Add the carrot, then stir in the wine, stock, tomato purée, and season.

Bring to the boil, then simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes until thickened. Taste and season. Set aside.

Put the butter, flour and milk in a pan. Gently heat, whisking, until thickened and smooth. Add a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg, season, then simmer for 2 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5/fan 170C. Bring a large pan of salted water
to the boil. Add the pasta, stir well, then cook, uncovered, for 10-12 minutes, until tender. Remove from the heat, stir in the spinach and, when just wilted, drain well.

Tip half the pasta into a shallow ovenproof dish, about 2.2 litre/4 pint, and level. Spoon over the sausage sauce, then cover with the remaining pasta. Pour the white sauce evenly over the top and sprinkle with the cheddar. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Leave for 5 minutes before serving.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments

I've given this 4 stars because I do think it is a good recipe but having taken a lot of the comments on I cooked it somewhat differently to what is written above in terms of ingredients. Firstly the meat sauce, I decided to bulk it up and used good old Tesco's cooking bacon to add to there Venison and Pork sausages (They were on offer!) and used one 440gm tin of chopped tomatoes rather than the puree and also added some Italian herb mix and a good shake of Lea & Perrins. All this made the meat sauce more liquid and therefore I simmered it for at least 25 minutes to reduce. To the white sauce I added 2 cloves of crushed garlic and after the sauce had begun to reach the right consistency added just over a 100 gms of the mature cheddar. On word of warning though the quantity, with rigatoni at least, was such that it only just fitted into a 3 ltr. gratin dish. It tasted wonderful but this way it is not the dish to start a slimming regime on!!!!!

Once I started to prepare this I thought why am I doing this on a week day as the prep seemed to take forever but I have to say it was well worth it and the whole family enjoyed it. Next time I will make ahead so all I have to do is bake it. Only change I made was to add some garlic to the onions and sausages.

Delicious and easy to make. kids loved it, although they didnt fall for the spinach trick. I thought that the white sauce could have done with a bit extra, so I will add parmesan or gruyere to the sauce next time.

Went down a treat with everyone at a recent get-together when it was supposed to be an option for the kids. Used medium cheddar instead of mature as our boys don't like strong cheese and it was really tasty.

Really tasty - and lasted the two of us for a week so bargainous too! I though the pasta and sauce ratio was spot on and tasty. Nice that you could spice it up with more / different ingredients if you fancied though. I'll make it again soon!

I found this really moreish.
To give the white sauce more flavour I put half of an onion, 1 bayleaf and 8 peppercorns in the milk and let it infuse for half an hour. Then I strained it and made the sauce as per recipe instructions. I did this in the morning so I wouldn't be trying to do everything at once and added a small amount of hot water to it when I reheated it.
I used sweetcorn instead of spinach and added two tablespoons of cornflour to thicken the sausage sauce. I also used Butcher's choice lincolnshire sausage and the herbs in those added to the flavours. I think if I had used plain pork it would not have been as tasty. I was surprised how nice it was and I would definitely make again.

I cooked this for some friends recently. Really easy to make and was descibed as the tastiest pasta dish ever ! I used some tasty italian sausages which added to the flavour, I didn't have any red wine open so I plopped in a dollop of red pesto. A yummy dish throughly enjoyed by all , including 2 hungry men and a 2 yr old !

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